Undead and Unwelcome

Chapter 6

We were all shocked, even his friends were shocked. Derik, normally a man of sunny temperament (at least from what I’d seen a few months back), was roaring like a rabid bear. Then he raised his fists over his head and brought them crashing down on the coffin lid, which instantly gave way.

Suddenly it was hard for me to swallow. Suddenly I wanted a drink in the worst way. Any drink. A smoothie, a frozen mudslide, blood, gasoline, Clorox, whatever.

Derik was glaring at me with eyes that were hard to look away from. “You might have washed her face, at least.”

This was my evening for wincing, except this time it was almost a flinch. Because Derik was right . . . but then, was I wrong in trying to show respect for whatever rituals they had?

Jessica coughed and spoke up, attempting to save my ass. “We, um, didn’t want to offend you guys.”

“Offend?” Derik spat. And in a flash, I remembered Antonia once telling me that her only real friend in the Pack was Derik. “Offend?”

Crash! More fist-​sized holes in the lid, which he seemed determined to convert into thousands of velvet-​tipped toothpicks. I took a step forward . . . only to feel Sinclair’s hand close around my bicep and gently pull me back.

He was right, of course. This wasn’t about me, and stomping into the middle of it would have been grossly inappropriate. And yet. And still. I couldn’t stand seeing anyone—even a bare acquaintance—in so much pain.

My feet seemed determined to disobey my brain, because they took another slow step . . . and Sinclair tugged me back, not so gently this time.

“You never should have gone!” Derik was yelling into the coffin. “You stupid bitch! You left your Pack!”

Nobody said anything to that, big surprise. Because, again, it was the truth.

“All right, that’s enough,” Michael said calmly. His copper-​colored eyes looked almost orange in the fluorescents. “Let’s take her home, Derik.”

So into the back Antonia went, the way back where there were no seat belts, because none were needed.

Jeannie drove; Michael sat beside her in the front. Derik sat across from us in the back. Looking through us, not at us.

No one said a word during the entire ninety-​minute drive to Cape Cod.